


Neptune

by racountuer



Series: Our Solar System [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Flora & Fauna, Alien Planet, Bickering, Fluff, M/M, Team as Family, because i'm apparently insane, sentient crystals that reveal innermost emotions, someone take this computer away from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 08:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7676791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/racountuer/pseuds/racountuer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Voltron needs to go to an alien planet to find minerals for the castle, and somehow, those minerals know that Keith and Lance have more emotions than they express. </p><p> </p><p>For #klanceweek16</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neptune

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to day one of #klanceweek16! It's so exciting to be writing fic for Klance Week, and this was very fun to write. 
> 
> This is the first fic of a series of fics, which are all titled under planets of our solar system. The fics are all going to be for klance week. 
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this (and those participating in Klance Week, holla!)

Team Voltron is made up of teenagers with horribly unstable hormones and horribly unstable emotions. Team Voltron would probably agree that Lance has the most unstable hormones _and_ emotions. Team Voltron is full of shit, as Lance would say, because if anyone is unstable, it’s Keith.

Keith and Hunk, actually, but more Keith because Keith is always somehow grating on Lance's nerves. Lance is thinking of putting up a democratic vote to replace Keith with someone else, but he can never quite bring himself to do it. It’s not because Lance is beginning to like Keith despite their bickering, not at all. He’s just a little at a loss of words whenever Keith gets annoying because Lance is thinking of ways to strangle him.

Yep. That’s it.

This is one of those times when Keith is rubbing on Lance’s raw nerves. Also Hunk, but Hunk gets off on a free pass because, although he may be behaving like Stalin in his final days, he’s also intuitive enough to know when there’s something or someone they should not approach. Keith, though, he has no reason other than being a skeptic and paranoid pain-in-the-ass for Lance to want to throw him across the alien planet they’re in.

“I really don’t think we should walk through there, guys,” Hunk says.

“I’m with Hunk,” Keith says, bayard in hand. “There’s something weird about this jungle.”

The paladins had gotten off on an alien planet, 136199, after Allura and Coran had told them that the castle needed a mineral that could only be found deep in the caves of the planet. They hadn’t mentioned that they needed to walk through miles of jungle before they got to the caves, but Lance supposed that after battling Zarkon, this was an easy mission.

“I’m not detecting any life-forms, and there doesn’t seem to be any unusual movements coming from the plants,” Pidge says, two different machinery in hand.

“I agree with Pidge,” Shiro announces. “Besides, we need to get to the mineral and if the planet is as sentient as a Balmera, like Allura said, then we can’t just use our lions to tear through the jungle.”

Lance stalks toward the edge of the greenery, marching into it. “Don’t tell me you guys are scared of a few trees? This is like Boy Scouts 101.”

“Not all of us were Boy Scouts, Lance,” Keith rolls his eyes. “Some of us actually had better things to do with their time than collect bugs and sell cookies.”

“Okay, first of all, only Girl Scouts sell cookies. Second of all, the Boy Scouts are a good and honourable team of young boys who dedicate their days to giving to their communities and-”

“All right,” Shiro presses a hand to Lance’s mouth. “We’re walking now.”

They go into the jungle with bayards out, eyes shifting from plant to plant. The shadows seem to grow as time passes, but with this planet’s days being 113 hours instead of Earth’s 24 hours, the shadows shouldn’t have been growing. It must be the colour of the whole planet. The greenery isn’t as green as the name suggested. It’s tinted with a slightly blue tinge, the world seemingly having been dipped in a thick watercolour.

Lance should know. His little siblings painted enough with watercolours for the basic palette to be ingrained in his mind.

A sudden, twisting ache takes up residence in his chest. He pushes it down as far as it can go because this is not the place, nor the time. This is a foreign planet thousands of light years away from home and he can’t even pull up Allura’s star map to look at Earth. The heartache can wait until later.

“You’re quiet,” Hunk huffs as he jumps over a fallen log.

“I’m trying to get through the jungle without tripping,” Lance says and immediately after, because the universe hates him, he trips. He hears snickers behind him.

Keith gives him a small smile, inexplicably more fond than gloating. “Yeah, because you’re doing such a good job at it.”

“Excuse me, I was doing totally fine for the last ten minutes, if you didn’t notice. But even Hunk had to jump over this log. Hunk! How was I supposed to overcome it?”

Pidge jumps over the log, and while they’re at it, over Lance’s head.

Keith smirks full-heartedly now, “What, like it’s hard?” He jumps after Pidge and Shiro. Lance grumbles as he follows them.

The rest of their trek is mostly in silence, with little bickering from Lance and Keith and barely any comments from Pidge, who is submerged in the world of technology. Pidge holds out the tracking device for the mineral, and if the thing is correct, they must be getting close enough to spot the caves any minute now. Or any tick. What’s the time system for a planet with 113 hours?

Lance asks exactly that.

“Lance,” Pidge inhales deeply, “Does it matter?”

“Of course it does! Aren’t you curious?”

“Yes, I am. But we’ll be gone from the planet in less than an hour and I really don’t think we’ll be returning so.”

“So that’s it? No extreme scientific experiments? No taking samples from the plants?”

“That’s actually a good idea.”

“No,” Shiro says sternly. “No samples and no experiments. Just the mineral.”

Pidge crosses their arms, “Fine.”

They reach the edge of the jungle, a huge lake covering the vast expanse of the clearing. A few meters off is a group of caves that glow dimly. Shiro presses a button in his helmet and the glass moves down to cover his whole face. He takes his and Pidge’s air tanks from his back, securing the air tube to his helmet before looking to see if anyone needs help with their own.

“All right, team,” Shiro announces. “We’re going to swim into the cave. Allura said the mineral was in the walls and ceiling, so we’re going to go in and get the nearest ones to the entrance. Then we’ll walk back to our lions. Everyone good?”

There is a chorus of agreements, and they set off into the lake.

Hunk nudges Lance, “This planet’s a little like Earth.”

“Don’t remind me,” Lance hangs his head, murmuring. “I miss the ocean and the lakes more than you know, but this is not the same.”

“It’s as close as you’re gonna get,” Lance swings his head around to face Keith, who’s already knee-deep in the water. “Earth is a long way from here, and I doubt we’ll visit anytime soon.”

Lance feels irritation fill up his chest, but behind it all, he feels his stomach drop with the truth of it. They still have thousands of planets to liberate, and Zarkon to actually face and defeat. Even after all of that, they’re going to have to pick up the pieces of a messed-up universe before they get to go home.

“Yeah,” Lance sighs before diving into the lake. His helmet lights up as soon as he’s underwater, the air tanks familiar weights on his back, and for a second, he feels good.

It’s good knowing that he’s with a group of people that as much as they judge him, they mean it as playfully as they can. Probably.

Keith punches Lance’s shoulder, motions slower in the water. Through their comms, Keith says, “Let’s go.”

They all swim through the murky water, the cave entrance only big enough to allow two people to swim together at a time. Somehow, Keith and Lance end up swimming side by side, with Hunk in the middle, and Shiro and Pidge in the front.

As they go further into the cave, the light from the outside is quick to be snuffed out by the damp black walls. They haven’t seen any minerals yet, don’t even have a visual of them, but Allura assured them that they would know exactly what they were when they saw them. No one could really argue with Allura on these matters, or any matters in particular.

The farther they swim, the darker it becomes in the water. Lance resurfaces to attempt to see how long the cave is. Instead, he sees millions of blue crystals on the walls and on the ceiling. The crystals light up the whole cave for kilometers, and Lance has no idea how they couldn’t see them underwater, but he’s more preoccupied with what he sees than what he thinks.

“Lance?” Keith’s voice calls on the comms.

When he doesn’t get a response, Keith’s head bobs up from the water a little ways in front of Lance. His whole face slackens when he sees the minerals, blue reflected on his eyes and his helmet and his stupid face and Lance discovers a whole new definition of beauty that he hadn’t ever considered.

“Guys,” Keith says, “You better come up. We’ve found the minerals.”

A few seconds later, Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk swim up to the surface. Their faces are as full of wonder as Lance and Keith’s.

“Wow,” Shiro breathes, sound like static in everyone’s ears.

They admire the crystals, which seem to twinkle under the attention, for a moment longer.

“So, how do we get them out?” Pidge asks.

“Allura said to touch them and ask for permission,” Hunks shrugs.

Lance is broken out of his trance, in which he had been unknowingly staring at Keith. It takes a second for his brain to catch up with his heart, but when it does, Lance is ready with a million excuses for looking at Keith. None of them seem to be enough.

“I bet the princess would love to get one of these,” Lance drawls, dispersing his thoughts that scream  _not her!_

Keith rolls his eyes, swimming toward the cave walls, “All right, Lance. Whatever you say.”

“Hey! You can’t get one before me, that ruins the romanticism of the gesture.”

“Too bad.”

Lance and Keith swim to the cave walls, each touching a crystal at the same time, both chanting ‘please’ and ‘let me have you’ over and over. The crystal falls from the cave wall, and they catch it with outstretched hands. As soon as it falls on them, no bigger than two palms of hands, the crystal turns from a bright blue to a vibrant red.

Lance and Keith tread water in silence.

“Uh, was it supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know, Hunk,” Shiro says, staring at both boys. “We’ll get more crystals just in case.”

Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge go to the cave walls and ask to be given crystals, and when they fall they are all blue in their hands. Lance and Keith both turn to each other in confusion, “Why is our’s red?”

“No fucking idea,” Pidge grins sarcastically.

“What a great help you are, oh, Green Paladin of inquisitiveness and wisdom,” Lance raises an eyebrow.

“We’ll ask Allura as soon as we get to the castle,” Shiro says. “For now, let’s just focus on getting these to our lions.”

Everyone begins swimming back to the cave entrance, but Lance stays rooted on the spot a moment longer. He lets Keith take the mineral from him, as he spares one last look at the cave. Lance wishes he had a camera, had taken time to document all the alien planets. His mother was always taking pictures of places, always telling Lance that once a moment was gone, a picture and a memory was all one had left.

Lance takes a mental picture of the cave, alight in blue and thrumming with life, and swims back underwater to catch up with the team.

 …

“Paladins, you’ve got them,” Allura claps her hands as she sees the team walk into the control room. “Great job! The planet hasn’t broken in half, so you must have done the ritual right. Oh, just give them to me and Coran.”

Everyone deposits their minerals in Allura’s and Coran’s arms, but as soon as Allura sees the red crystal, she falters. “Who recovered that crystal?”

“It was me and Lance,” Keith answers.

“Oh,” Allura says. She turns to Coran, who looks as confused as she does. “Well, that’s odd.”

“Very odd,” Coran nods.

“Why?” Lance asks, “Why did the crystal turn red?”

“Well, it’s fascinating, really.” Coran begins. “Just like the planet, the minerals are sentient beings. When they detect strong emotions, they change colours according to the person’s, or, well, people’s feelings.”

“And what does red mean?” Keith asks cautiously.

Allura smiles a little, “It can mean love or hate, but in all the stories I’ve heard of Alteans going to recover these crystals, it usually turns red because of hidden affections.”

Keith and Lance glance at each other, both red in the face.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Holla for Klance Week! (I almost feel like an ad for Klance Week.)


End file.
